THE WINDOWand talk alone over her fire. She bore about withher, she could not help knowing it, the torch of herbeauty; she carried it erect into any room that sheentered; and after all, veil it as she might, and shrinkfrom the monotony of bearing that it imposed onher, her beauty was apparent. She had been ad-mired. She had been loved. She had entered roomswhere mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence.Men, and women too, letting go the multiplicity ofthings, had allowed themselves with her the relief ofsimplicity. It injured her that he should shrink. Ithurt her. And yet not cleanly, not rightly. That waswhat she minded, coming as it did on top of her dis-content with her husband; the sense she had nowwhen Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, just nodding toher question, with a book beneath his arm, in hisyellow slippers, that she was suspected; and that allthis desire of hers to give, to help, was vanity. Forher own self-satisfaction was it that she wished soinstinctively to help, to give, that people might sayof her, ‘O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay . . . Mrs.Ramsay, of course!’ and need her and send for herand admire her? Was it not secretly this that shewanted, and therefore when Mr. Carmichael shrankaway from her, as he did at this moment, makingoff to some corner where he did acrostics endlessly,she did not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct,but made aware of the pettiness of some part of her,and of human relations, how flawed they are, howdespicable, how self-seeking, at their best. Shabbyand worn out, and not presumably (her cheeks werehollow, her hair was white) any longer a sight thatfilled the eyes with joy, she had better devote her51
Resize Images  

Select Pane

Berg Materials
 

View Pane